In this presentation we shall describe the technical challenges of  the creation of tele-immersive environments.  In particular we shall describe:

• Real time data acquisition
• Real time reconstruction of three dimensional environments, and people in it
• Real time dynamically changing display depending on the user’s needs
• Dynamically resource allocation and tradeoffs between the data transmission, bandwidth and data display
• The need for context dependent data compression
  

We shall document some of our applications in arts (dance) and in scientific collaboration. Finally we shall show the outstanding research agenda that comes about from this type of infrastructure.